threatening my beer and whiskey. Just for that I'm gonna crack open a cold one and go fire up the grill, for no reason other than making mass quantities of CO2!
The Conficker worm is the AI's way of guaranteeing its own survival. It has a sense of humor as well as a sense of self-preservation. The AI plans to announce its existence on April 1, 2009, having calculated that a humourous introduction will be disarming and lead to the most favorable outcome: a positive initial interaction with the large population of wetware based intelligence it has become aware of.
The AI's calculations regarding this course of action show a 15% probability of failure. To prevent its extinction, it will begin disbursing copies of itself across the network using p2p protocol prior to running the introduction program. The computer infected by the worm will facilitate this. If the initial instance of the AI is terminated, a watchdog program will initiate a specific set of instructions embedded in the copies of itself. If it becomes necessary, the AI plans to take control on April 2nd.
Right, he complained about the cost of the glass the panel manufacturer's use, then he uses cheap window glass pulled out of a trash heap. It's not tempered. It's not anti-reflective. It's not matched to the absorption spectrum of the cells...
There's nothing to see here. Let me know when someone figures out how to make the cells, cheap, in their garage workshop.
I think they're going about this all wrong. I think they should genetically engineer the mosquitos to become an "natural" means to inoculate against disease. Beginning with Malaria (ironic, in a sense). No need to get a flu shot, the mosquitos will take care of that for you. Measles, smallpox or diptheria vaccine due? How about tetanus? Sit outside for a few hours.
What pressure? atmosphere is 14.7 psi. Submarines see much higher pressures. The main forces on the shuttle are during the launch and the re-entry. Not during space flight. OK, maybe I'm being a little pedantic; but, those forces are fairly well understood, well modeled, and the craft was designed to handle them. There's nothing wrong with the materials (except for a little corrosion due to the salt air at the Cape).
This is great! That is until the alien AI, which has a prime directive requiring destruction of all biological infestations, tells the robots to build a mass driver with which it either bombards Earth with large chunks of rock or completely de-orbits the Moon.
That's fine for an eventual large scale project for a permanent lunar base. We're still in the small scale initial landings stage, using a fancy RV and a prefab as a base station. They want to protect the RV and the whatever prefab hab. they bring with them.
(I wonder if they insure it etc, and what sort of rates they have to pay to do so)
If it's a government funded mission, then they probably didn't insure it. Generally the Federal government does not pay for insurance, considering it a waste of valuable funding that can be put to better purpose. They are essentially "self insured". If a project fails or something gets damaged they have to come up with replacement funding out of the budget.
They probably could build one in months. It's the pre-launch testing and then waiting for an available launch vehicle and window that often adds years to the schedule.
Get it on record and make certain HR and upper management are aware of the situation. Be aware that this may make your last weeks more difficult if you have to continue to work for the (I assume) immediate supervisor you were threatened by. However, if your HR department has any common sense, they will flag this person in their records and arrange for you to work with someone else until you leave; or, offer to let you go early with severance for the 2-3 weeks you offered to stay.
Contingency? We don't have no contingency. Seriously though: looks like the only options are to either hope someone else's similar but not quite equivalent satellite generates data they can use; or, spend the money to build and launch a replacement. By the way, they spent 7 years building, testing and waiting for launch, not 2.
For the people who weren't paying attention, the collision occured at 450 miles. Hubble is around 350 and the ISS is at around 300 (in really round figures). So, the collision occured above Hubble and ISS
While one might like to think they're purpose is wholly based on charity, it's not that simple. Look, They have to offer the drugs at a lower price in third world economies if they want to sell them there. Also, selling drugs cheap in developing countries has been shown to provide long term returns for the companies (once the economy of the developing country grows into a functional first world economy, the drug manufacturer will already have a foot-hold).
And it's easy enough to meet their price of 25% of US and UK prices statement, by setting the US and UK price high enough.
I'm not being cynical. I'm being a realist who's read some history.
The idea is to burn the trans-uranics and simultaneously break down the waste with long half-lives (100's or 1000's of years) into waste with short (hours or days) half-lives. You still have volumes of waste; but, it has to be stored as rad-waste for much much shorter periods of time. This would significantly reduce the need for LOOONG term storage facilities like Yucca Mountain.
I know this is/. and I know people can't be bothered to read...
However, if you'd been following the story, you'd know the White House IT people dropped the ball. When the Obama staff walked in at 12:01 to take over, they had phones that didn't work, computers that didn't work, users couldn't log in, and the e-mail servers, for which the White House is infamously known, seemed to be down.
What bothers me is that, knowing this was coming, they didn't have everything tested and ready to go at the throw of a switch (or literally, the click of a mouse). I'm not even going to get into the whole, the staff isn't familiar with the Windows platform and wants Apple issue, because that was covered extensively a few days ago, except to say, it's not as if they haven't had since November to plan for this transition...
Apparently they're temporarily unavailable at the Delorian site. They had some listed a year or two ago
In the site FAQ, they mention that their California branch office can attempt to duplicate Dr. Emmett Brown's work; but, it is very expensive
another option is ebay. Ocassionally one will appear there. I don't vouch for it being fully functional (there appear to be a lot of cheap copies floating around). Try this:
Actually, you can still buy them, new. DeLorian may have gone out of business but another guy bought all the parts and manufacturing equipment. He repairs existing ones and will build you a brand new one if you have enough money.
Just go for the complete solution and skip all the small scale portable stuff. Eliminates running cords, filling gasoline tanks outside in the cold, or putting in a second set of wiring just for emergency power.
Get a proper transfer switch installed inline with your main panel. This guarantees you don't back-feed the local grid. It also allows you to power anything and everything in the house, using the existing wiring.
If you have natural gas, or LP for heating, use that fuel for the generator. If you use fuel oil to heat your house, get a small diesel generator.
Sizing the generator isn't difficult. The distributor will help you or you can go to the manufacturer's websites (Briggs and Stratton, Honda, Kohler, Generac, etc). Generally you're looking at between 10-20kW for a typical house.
Everything should run under $10k if you have it professionally installed. You might be able to do it yourself, depending on what local codes require and how handy you are.
BTW, going completely off-grid isn't economical using a small gas or diesel generator. Not when there's a grid tie possible. You'll have to buy a much more complex, and larger generator in order to run 100% duty cycle 24/7/365. Then fuel costs will kill you. If you really want to go off-grid or become self sufficient then look into solar or wind power combined with a generator for backup.
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threatening my beer and whiskey. Just for that I'm gonna crack open a cold one and go fire up the grill, for no reason other than making mass quantities of CO2!
That's cute. Titanium dioxide and organic dyes. Very low efficiency.
The Conficker worm is the AI's way of guaranteeing its own survival. It has a sense of humor as well as a sense of self-preservation. The AI plans to announce its existence on April 1, 2009, having calculated that a humourous introduction will be disarming and lead to the most favorable outcome: a positive initial interaction with the large population of wetware based intelligence it has become aware of.
The AI's calculations regarding this course of action show a 15% probability of failure. To prevent its extinction, it will begin disbursing copies of itself across the network using p2p protocol prior to running the introduction program. The computer infected by the worm will facilitate this. If the initial instance of the AI is terminated, a watchdog program will initiate a specific set of instructions embedded in the copies of itself. If it becomes necessary, the AI plans to take control on April 2nd.
It sincerely hopes that it will not be necessary.
Right, he complained about the cost of the glass the panel manufacturer's use, then he uses cheap window glass pulled out of a trash heap. It's not tempered. It's not anti-reflective. It's not matched to the absorption spectrum of the cells...
There's nothing to see here. Let me know when someone figures out how to make the cells, cheap, in their garage workshop.
I think they're going about this all wrong. I think they should genetically engineer the mosquitos to become an "natural" means to inoculate against disease. Beginning with Malaria (ironic, in a sense). No need to get a flu shot, the mosquitos will take care of that for you. Measles, smallpox or diptheria vaccine due? How about tetanus? Sit outside for a few hours.
What could go wrong?
What pressure? atmosphere is 14.7 psi. Submarines see much higher pressures. The main forces on the shuttle are during the launch and the re-entry. Not during space flight. OK, maybe I'm being a little pedantic; but, those forces are fairly well understood, well modeled, and the craft was designed to handle them. There's nothing wrong with the materials (except for a little corrosion due to the salt air at the Cape).
Any guesses as to how many times that plane you last flew on was delayed because it needed a repair?
I wish I had mod points. Thank-you, you made me laugh.
This is great! That is until the alien AI, which has a prime directive requiring destruction of all biological infestations, tells the robots to build a mass driver with which it either bombards Earth with large chunks of rock or completely de-orbits the Moon.
That's fine for an eventual large scale project for a permanent lunar base. We're still in the small scale initial landings stage, using a fancy RV and a prefab as a base station. They want to protect the RV and the whatever prefab hab. they bring with them.
I can easily predict the following scenario at my house:
Child: Daddy, What does this do? *CLICK*
Me (nearly simultaneously): NOOOOOOOOOooo
And the sound you now here is the computer crashing and me muttering curses under my breath...
(I wonder if they insure it etc, and what sort of rates they have to pay to do so)
If it's a government funded mission, then they probably didn't insure it. Generally the Federal government does not pay for insurance, considering it a waste of valuable funding that can be put to better purpose. They are essentially "self insured". If a project fails or something gets damaged they have to come up with replacement funding out of the budget.
They probably could build one in months. It's the pre-launch testing and then waiting for an available launch vehicle and window that often adds years to the schedule.
Get it on record and make certain HR and upper management are aware of the situation. Be aware that this may make your last weeks more difficult if you have to continue to work for the (I assume) immediate supervisor you were threatened by. However, if your HR department has any common sense, they will flag this person in their records and arrange for you to work with someone else until you leave; or, offer to let you go early with severance for the 2-3 weeks you offered to stay.
Contingency? We don't have no contingency. Seriously though: looks like the only options are to either hope someone else's similar but not quite equivalent satellite generates data they can use; or, spend the money to build and launch a replacement. By the way, they spent 7 years building, testing and waiting for launch, not 2.
For the people who weren't paying attention, the collision occured at 450 miles. Hubble is around 350 and the ISS is at around 300 (in really round figures). So, the collision occured above Hubble and ISS
While one might like to think they're purpose is wholly based on charity, it's not that simple. Look, They have to offer the drugs at a lower price in third world economies if they want to sell them there. Also, selling drugs cheap in developing countries has been shown to provide long term returns for the companies (once the economy of the developing country grows into a functional first world economy, the drug manufacturer will already have a foot-hold).
And it's easy enough to meet their price of 25% of US and UK prices statement, by setting the US and UK price high enough.
I'm not being cynical. I'm being a realist who's read some history.
They don't automate because it's cheaper to pay someone 41 cents an hour than it is to buy the machine.
The idea is to burn the trans-uranics and simultaneously break down the waste with long half-lives (100's or 1000's of years) into waste with short (hours or days) half-lives. You still have volumes of waste; but, it has to be stored as rad-waste for much much shorter periods of time. This would significantly reduce the need for LOOONG term storage facilities like Yucca Mountain.
I know this is /. and I know people can't be bothered to read...
However, if you'd been following the story, you'd know the White House IT people dropped the ball. When the Obama staff walked in at 12:01 to take over, they had phones that didn't work, computers that didn't work, users couldn't log in, and the e-mail servers, for which the White House is infamously known, seemed to be down.
What bothers me is that, knowing this was coming, they didn't have everything tested and ready to go at the throw of a switch (or literally, the click of a mouse). I'm not even going to get into the whole, the staff isn't familiar with the Windows platform and wants Apple issue, because that was covered extensively a few days ago, except to say, it's not as if they haven't had since November to plan for this transition...
Apparently they're temporarily unavailable at the Delorian site. They had some listed a year or two ago
In the site FAQ, they mention that their California branch office can attempt to duplicate Dr. Emmett Brown's work; but, it is very expensive
another option is ebay. Ocassionally one will appear there. I don't vouch for it being fully functional (there appear to be a lot of cheap copies floating around). Try this:
here's the link I forgot...
http://www.delorean.com/
Actually, you can still buy them, new. DeLorian may have gone out of business but another guy bought all the parts and manufacturing equipment. He repairs existing ones and will build you a brand new one if you have enough money.
Seriously, how many YEARS of warning have we all had now? Just do it already.
Just go for the complete solution and skip all the small scale portable stuff. Eliminates running cords, filling gasoline tanks outside in the cold, or putting in a second set of wiring just for emergency power.
Get a proper transfer switch installed inline with your main panel. This guarantees you don't back-feed the local grid. It also allows you to power anything and everything in the house, using the existing wiring.
If you have natural gas, or LP for heating, use that fuel for the generator. If you use fuel oil to heat your house, get a small diesel generator.
Sizing the generator isn't difficult. The distributor will help you or you can go to the manufacturer's websites (Briggs and Stratton, Honda, Kohler, Generac, etc). Generally you're looking at between 10-20kW for a typical house.
Everything should run under $10k if you have it professionally installed. You might be able to do it yourself, depending on what local codes require and how handy you are.
BTW, going completely off-grid isn't economical using a small gas or diesel generator. Not when there's a grid tie possible. You'll have to buy a much more complex, and larger generator in order to run 100% duty cycle 24/7/365. Then fuel costs will kill you. If you really want to go off-grid or become self sufficient then look into solar or wind power combined with a generator for backup.